Saturday, August 6, 2011

No Fool Like An Old Fool

WHEN this little blog was re-animated, one of the founding resolutions concerned Phillip Adams, whose dotage earned him the quiet promise of immunity from correction. Let the poor old chap enjoy his twilight, that was the sentiment, for we all grow grey and weary, and surely it is the essence of Christian charity to ignore an old man’s howling on the heath, no matter how annoying. Unfortunately, as the pack of Camels beside the Billabong’s computer attests, strength of will is not a Bunyip’s strong suit, and after the past few weeks of the Philcher’s offerings in The Australian’s weekend magazine, the temptation to note that the Living Treasure is almost every week dead wrong about something or other has become irresistible.

July 9:Yes, let us lecture them [the Chinese], particularly on human rights. But let us not pretend we do so with a scintilla of moral authority.

Forced abortions, the imprisonment of dissidents, troublemakers treated to a bullet behind the ear – these, according to the Philcher, are no worse than “Canberra’s sleazy approach to refugees”

July 16:Other examples of erotic excess include the Sun King’s romantic accommodations for Marie Antoinette.

July 23:Academics were, shudder, elitist. As were the Bradmans of science when they raised the issue of global warming..

Meet one of Adams' “Bradmans of science”.

July30:I remember a dinner with Rupert and his then wife Anna in London, in 1971. Rupert was already loathed in London. “The dirty digger” as Private Eye called him was being blamed, absurdly in my view, for debauching the standards of Fleet Street. It is convenient to forget that Robert Maxwell, for example, had set the highest standards for personal, corporate and journalistic sleaze.

Maxwell did not buy Mirror Newspapers until 1984, quite a few years after Murdoch endured the Philcher’s dinner conversation. In 1971, Maxwell’s media holdings consisted of a large commercial printer and recent, bitter memories of being forced to sell scientific publisher Pergamon Press, having been criticized by regulators as a person unfit to “exercise stewardship over a publicly quoted company.”

And in today's magazine? Well, the Olive Rancher keeps his record intact.

August 6:A visit to Westminster Abbey presents the same propositions in the mighty marble tombs of generals and admirals that have all the plum positions whilst a few artists are squeezed into the cramped slum of Poet’s Corner.

5 comments:

Yes, Phil the Dill is a living monument to the "How could I be so wrong hand wringers society of Inner Melbourne".But having moved to country NSW he has now resigned his membership of the ALP because his dear friend K Rudd was unceremoniously knifed by the same leftist clique to which he belonged.A case of the biter bit.Aint life grand !

Don't waste your time Professor. There is no need to fisk Adams since no one reads his stuff any more. The Oz publishes quite a motley lot of writers and reflects far greater diversity as a result. Doesn't mean that Oz buyers actually read it all though.Adams' actions are far more serious that his utterances. He, along with Turnbull and the other gentry of the Hunter Valley had a big hand in preventing a dam being built in their weekend idyll.